


within your warm embrace

by Mertiya



Series: Fire Emblem Missing Scenes [4]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Byleth and Linhardt are both rubbish at feelings but they get there eventually, Canon Compliant, Edelgard is a good wingman, First Time, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Missing Scene, Napping, Thank God You Lived Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 21:04:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20495324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: When everyone you love has very nearly died, it's probably a good time to make sure they're aware how you feel.  Or: Linhardt and Byleth get together post-battle.





	within your warm embrace

**Author's Note:**

> i can't stop send help

The Immaculate One falls. A moment later, so does Byleth. Edelgard’s world stutters as she drops to her knees beside him and pulls him into her lap. His eyes are shut, and she can’t feel a heartbeat. His eyes are shut and she _can’t feel a heartbeat—_

“Byleth. _Byleth_!” Linhardt is beside them, white light already forming around his hands. Marianne is a few steps behind him, worry plain on her face. Edelgard stares mutely down at the body of her closest friend, and watches as the white-gold glow washes over him with no response. “Oh, please,” Linhardt says tightly, softly, as if he doesn’t even know he’s speaking. Marianne has a hand on his shoulder, tight, squeezing, and Edelgard didn’t know—she _didn’t know_—but the look on Linhardt’s face says it all.

Edelgard has paid so many prices to be where she is now, but this might be the worst of all of them, staring mutely down at Byleth’s pale, calm face. And then—something changes. A tear lands on Byleth’s cheek, maybe hers, maybe Linhardt’s. A soft little breeze murmurs through Byleth’s hair, carrying with it an odd darkness. Byleth takes a soft, shuddering breath, and Edelgard feels his heart stutter and begin to pulse, unsteady at first, but stronger with each beat, under her hands.

Byleth blinks and opens his eyes, and they’re not bright emerald anymore; they’re the same soft dark from all those years ago. He looks up at her and Linhardt, and he smiles exhaustedly.

~

Linhardt has been awake for longer than he ever has in his life. The last time that was anything close to this, it was five years ago, and he was trying to tell himself that he hadn’t lost Byleth for good. Now Byleth is sleeping in his room at Garreg Mach, and he’s safe, and they’ve won, and Linhardt is outside staring at the cold moon, feeling as if all desire to sleep has somehow been squeezed out of him.

“Lin? Are you all right?” He turns, expecting to see Marianne, but it’s Edelgard hovering in front of him, the moon at her back, her ankles swallowed up in dark grass. She’s still holding Aymr, and there’s blood on the blade, turned black in the white moonlight.

“Ah—Your Majesty.” He’s slow to rise, and the world sways a little as he gets to his feet. “Insomnia, that’s all.”

She looks him up and down, then reaches out and carefully adjusts his cravat. “Why don’t you go see Byleth?”

“He’s sleeping. I don’t want to disturb him,” Linhardt says softly. Edelgard gives him a skeptical look, but he doesn’t know how to respond other than to shrug helplessly.

“He’s asking for you,” she says quietly, and Linhardt steps back so suddenly he nearly trips over his own feet.

“What is he doing awake?” he demands. “He needs rest. Doctor’s orders!”

“Asking for you,” Edelgard says, and Linhardt can’t quite figure out what that light smirk on her face is doing there.

“I suppose he needs help sleeping again,” Linhardt murmurs, and he’s suddenly remembering all too well his head on Byleth’s, Byleth’s arm around his shoulder. “Very well. I’ll go see what I can do.”

“Do that,” Edelgard tells him, but her voice is surprisingly gentle.

Byleth is sitting up in his bed when Linhardt arrives, looking exhausted and wrung-out.

“You’re not going to fall asleep like that,” Linhardt chides him gently, heading for the bed, but when he gets there, Byleth reaches out and takes his hands, pulling him into a clumsy embrace.

“Lin,” he murmurs, voice scratchy and hoarse. “Need to tell you.”

“You need to sleep,” Linhardt insists, although his heart skips a beat at the way Byleth is pushing his face singlemindedly against Linhardt’s chest, almost nuzzling at him.

“Sleep later,” Byleth retorts. “Lin, please.”

_Please_. Lin remembers saying that without meaning to, when he thought he’d lost Byleth, a prayer to no one, because there was no one left to pray to anymore. Byleth is speaking in the same lost, almost-broken tone, so he pauses, finds himself smoothing Byleth’s hair back from his face without thinking, and looks at him with his head cocked on one side. “Please what?”

“Let me tell you.” Byleth is staring at him so intently, those new/old dark eyes trying to drink in his whole face. “I watched you die so many times,” he murmurs, and this time Lin can’t stop himself from asking, the words drawn out by a sharp curiosity he can never quite quell.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think I can do it anymore,” Byleth says slowly, and three fingers reach out and brush across Lin’s cheek. “I had a blessing. I could turn back time.”

“Your crest?” Lin asks in stupefaction, forgetting for a moment everything that has brought them here in his swelling interest.

Byleth nods. “You can study it to your heart’s content, now.” He smiles, but the smile vanishes quickly. “It got tiring very quickly, but I had to keep going. I couldn’t lose any of you. I couldn’t lose _you_, Lin.” It’s almost more than he’s ever said at one time, and Lin’s heart contracts in his chest. 

“Me?” he says, very softly.

Another nod, and then Byleth laces their fingers together and leans forward, his eyes fluttering. Linhardt almost doesn’t realize what’s happening, and then suddenly Byleth’s lips are on his, and they’re kissing.

There’s so much leading up to this, from the first moment a sleepy Linhardt looked up to see the new, awkward, not-much-older-looking-than-him Professor enter the classroom, to the repeated awkward conversations about crests and maybe trying a little harder on his schoolwork, to _I’ll protect you_, to _It’s all right to be afraid_, to an endless gulf of five long years with hope slipping away a little more each day, to the sight of gold fading from Byleth’s hair and his eyes opening—

To now. To Byleth’s thumbs rubbing circles on his cheeks, his lips moving against Linhardt’s, questioning at first, then stronger as Linhardt opens his mouth and lets Byleth’s tongue slip inside and moans against him.

Linhardt needs to be closer to him. His hands slip up beneath Byleth’s tunic, pausing on the warmth of his stomach, moving up to rest on his chest and feel the steady drumbeat of his heart, maybe not quite so steady now. “Oh, Lin.” Byleth’s hands drop from his face and then his arms wrap around Linhardt, hugging him tightly. Then his lips move to Linhardt’s throat, and Linhardt gasps, because that’s—_oh_. He’s imagined this, once or twice, more when Byleth was missing than when he was back, but nothing could possibly compare to the real heat of him, the ceaseless motion of his hands on Linhardt’s back, the way he’s starting to move his hips in little eager circling motions.

“You—you should be resting,” he tries.

“Later,” Byleth tells him hoarsely, and then he demonstrates how little he needs rest by picking Linhardt up bodily and depositing him on the bed. Something seems to crack open in Linhardt’s chest, letting out a rush of warmth as he looks up at Byleth looking down at him, his newly-dark eyes made darker by the dilation of their desire.

“There’s _always_ time for a nap,” he says, feeling a mischievous smile spreading across his face, and he wriggles against the bed.

“That is definitely not true,” Byleth retorts, his hands dropping to Linhardt’s trousers, pausing with his eyes flicking up to Linhardt’s face. “Can I?”

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want a nap first?” Lin bites the tip of his finger in a way he really hopes is seductive and not ridiculous. Either way, it seems to work, because Byleth’s mouth drops open slightly and he simply pauses.

Then he shakes his head a little and says, “I’m really very sure. But if you—”

“I’m teasing you,” Linhardt cuts in. “Go ahead.”

Byleth doesn’t make another sound, he simply undoes both of their trousers, frees their erections, and presses them together. The warmth and the sensation combine to draw another moan out of Linhardt’s throat, and suddenly, for once in his life, he’s _very_ uninterested in napping or research or really anything that isn’t the way Byleth’s face is flushing and the way his cock feels against Linhardt’s, the way he rocks forward. The way they’re both moving, moaning, hips hitching against one another. Byleth’s thicker; Linhardt is a little longer, and that is such a shame, because it means they don’t quite overlap perfectly, and maybe if they did it would feel just a _little_ better, if that’s even possible, because _oh_, Byleth’s hand, sliding and stuttering and moving across them both, and that look on his face—Linhardt _keeps_ coming back to that look on his face, awed and open and a little desperate—

He’s making noises, he realizes. Probably quite embarrassing ones. Linhardt once overheard Ferdinand and Bernadetta and when he tried to say something to Ferdinand about it, flushing and stammering, Ferdinand apologized and mumbled something about “you know how it is.” But Linhardt did _not_ know how it was, not till now, not till Byleth lies down on top of him, keeping one hand between them to keep them aligned, and the two of them are thrusting and moaning and he actually can’t tell who’s making what noise, because it’s so good and so much and Byleth, Byleth, _Byleth_—

Byleth’s cracked moan is ringing in his ears, and Linhardt feels like he’s been turned inside out, albeit in a good sort of way. Byleth’s warm on top of him, and they’re both rather sticky. This shirt might be ruined. Although he wore it into battle so it was probably ruined anyway, Linhardt thinks sleepily. Mmm, that’s fine, then.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Byleth says softly into his ear. His breath is warm, a little ticklish. Linhardt laces their fingers together and hums in acknowledgement.

“You should get some rest now,” he says after a moment.

“Only if you do too,” Byleth tells him. “Promise you’ll be here when I wake up.”

“Of course.” Linhardt resituates himself to be a little more comfortable in Byleth’s embrace. “You know me. I’m far too lazy to move.”

Soft chuckle. Byleth kisses the curve of his jaw gently. “Thank the goddess for that.”

“Now stop worrying and sleep. Your heart restarted today.”

“Started,” Byleth corrects him, and Lin blinks and swivels his head what feels like a hundred and eighty degrees.

“Excuse me?”

“Started,” Byleth mumbles again. “Tell you tomorrow. Promise.”

“You’d better,” Linhardt informs him, but it is lovely and warm, and he has been awake for far too long, so sleep probably trumps curiosity for the time being. He thinks like this he might even have good dreams. “Good night, Byleth.”

“Good night, Lin.”


End file.
